Change Rein - Anne Jolin Page 0,46

out. I take the burden of her weight, lifting her into my arms, brushing some of the hair off her face.

“Excuse me, sir. We need to take her to the hospital,” the female paramedic next to me says, touching my arm in a soothing way.

“I’m coming with her.” I look down at London, who’s now completely unconscious in my arms.

The paramedic looks between Larry and me nervously. “Are you family?”

My mouth opens and closes as I hold on to her limp body, not wanting to let her go. I know what they need me to say, but I can’t say it. She’s not my family—she’s my whole life.

A firm hand settles on my shoulder. “He’s family,” Larry tells the woman.

My body convulses as they take her from me, the loss too sudden. They lay her flat onto a gurney, my hand still in hers.

“Let’s go, son.”

We climb into the back of the ambulance, and I refuse to let go, even as they load her.

Each second we drive there takes years to pass. She’s still unconscious. They said that it was likely that, once the adrenaline diminished, her body succumbed to the amount of pain she’d been suffering during the fire.

“You will have to wait here,” the paramedic tells us as they stop outside the emergency doors inside the hospital. “The doctors will come get you.” She points to the waiting room next to us.

If Larry weren’t here to physically remove my hand from hers, I’d still be here, begging all the angels in Heaven to let me stay with her. We settle into two chairs, comfortable even in their discomfort, and wait.

After a few minutes, one of the nurses comes over with information for us to fill out. Her social insurance number, birth date, and a variety of other information. It doesn’t take long for her father to complete the information, and once again, we settle back into silence.

I wipe my face with the sleeves of my shirt, attempting to dry it. But it’s futile, as both Larry and I are soaked from head to toe. When I taste the salt on my lips, I realize I’ve been crying.

I’ve only cried one other time in my entire life, and that was when my first horse, Boomer, died, so I’m not familiar with the sensation.

“You love her.”

Looking up, I find Larry watching me intently. It was worded more as a statement and less as a question, but I still nod.

“I’m going to marry her someday,” I tell him.

As he fixes the ball cap over his head, the edges of his mouth curl into a smile. “I think I’ve known that for quite some time, son.”

Hours pass, and as they do, my nerves continue to wear thin. They came to tell us that she was going into surgery, but we were left with no more details than that.

Owen and Aurora come with changes of clothes and hot coffee. The other horses have all been wrangled up on the property and placed into outdoor paddocks for the time being. The firemen weren’t able to save much of the barn, although I hadn’t expected they would.

We don’t ask about Achilles, and they don’t tell. I suppose none of us are ready to talk about what that will look like for her.

I may not be a man of faith, but I pray in that waiting room. I pray for my girl, and I pray for her white knight, Achilles.

A doctor, who can’t be much older than I am, looks up from London’s clipboard in the waiting room. “Are you the family of London Daniels?”

“Yes,” we all manage to say more or less at the same time, standing in unison.

The man hesitates as if he’s not sure if he should say this to everyone, but he seems to let it go as he continues, “London is out of surgery. The stress from her actions during the fire caused the hairline fractures to her sacrum to widen exponentially. We had to place pins inside the bone to stabilize the injury. She suffered a great deal of pain, which is likely what attributed to her unconscious state. Her body finally gave out. We are monitoring her fever closely, but we suspect it will dissipate within a few hours, and we’re giving her something for the pain. When she’s awake, you are all welcome to see her, but until then, please make yourselves comfortable.”

“Sir,” Aurora asks. “Will she be able to ride again?”

He clips the pen on top of